Friday, October 28, 2016

Occupational therapy student Chantal D’Souza wanted to create costumes that work with wheelchairs for inpatients at Holland Bloorview. “I know kids in wheelchairs often get asked: ‘What happened?’ or ‘What’s wrong with you?’ says the University of Toronto student. “I wanted to change that to: ‘Tell me about your costume?’ or ‘How did you make that?’

Chantal volunteered with artists Lynn Simmons and Marek Wojcik in Holland Bloorview’s Centre for the Arts to run a four night costume-making course.

“Don’t worry so much about whether the costume is something that’s Pinterest-worthy,” Chantal advises parents. “The process of creating it themselves is engaging and fun for kids and makes a memory.”

Here are her tips:

Let your child come up with the idea of what to be.

Make the structure of the costume from cardboard (your local grocery probably has spare boxes). Stabilize the structure with light PVC tubing from a building store. PVC works great because it bends. For example, one child made a mermaid tail out of PVC tubing that was sawed into circles to create the frame and then covered in fabric.

Paint the cardboard structure with acrylic paint from the craft store, or cover it in fabric. Go to your fabric store and look for samples.

One child cut feathers out of cardboard, then painted them in blues and greens and attached them with wire to her larger peacock costume. You can get really cool metallic paint too.

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